Early Uruk Period
Stratified urban centers rose in southern Mesopotamia between 4500 and 3750 B.C. This was the Early Uruk Period.The Early and Middle Uruk Periods ran to about 3450 B.C. when the area underwent a transition from village to city. The Tigris and Euphrates probably were joined further upstream than they are now; they flowed through many channels in the alluvial plain, and Uruk covered 70 hectares (c. 173 acres).
Late Uruk Period
From c. 3450 - c. 3000 B.C., in the Late Uruk Period, there may have been a change in the courses of the rivers. People migrated south from Nippur to Uruk, and Uruk grew to about 100 hectares, making it what was probably the largest urban area of southern Mesopotamia. People from southern Mesopotamia traveled west to the Mediterranean and northeast to the Iranian plateau, establishing colonies in southwest Iran.3100-2900 is also referred to as the Jemdet Nasr period and is the last phase before the Early Dynastic Period of the Sumerians.
Early Dynastic Period
By the Early Dynastic I Period, which followed the Uruk period, (c. 2900-2350 B.C.), the Uruk region was about 850 hectares, with Uruk itself comprising about half of that. Small villages decreased while large centers increased.Uruk was abandoned after the 1st century A.D.
Sources:
- Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East, by Michael Roaf. Oxford: Andromeda Book. 2004.
- James A. Armstrong "Mesopotamia" The Oxford Companion to Archaeology. Brian M. Fagan, ed., Oxford University Press 1996. Oxford University Press.
Assyrian Empire 750-625 B.C. The map shows Uruk and comes from William Shepherd's Historical Atlas. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1911.
